


Cooking With Alfred

by Zoeleo



Series: Rara Avis [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Adopted Children, Alfred is the best, Batfamily Feels, Cooking, Gen, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 14:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16065266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoeleo/pseuds/Zoeleo
Summary: “What’cha making?”If he were a lesser man, he would have jumped at the unanticipated question. It has been many years since an elbow-height voice was piping around the manor.The boy has only been with them for a few months now. So much more reserved than Dick ever was, they are not quite comfortable in each other's presence yet. But maybe that's about to change after Jason wanders into his kitchen.





	Cooking With Alfred

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Illuvien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illuvien/gifts).



> I made the mistake of reading something that went really heavily into Jason being abused/neglected by his parents and it got to the point where I was so horribly depressed that I had to write something fluffy to counter act. Give our boy just a little bit of happiness.
> 
> So, chronologically this is the earliest of this series. Just a few months after Bruce takes him in, before everyone's relationships have really solidified. Alfred and Jason don't really _know_ each other yet, but they are doing their best.
> 
> I absolutely did not edit this or do anything that closely resembles editing. If you see some really bad comma usage or typo that bothers you so much you can't help yourself - let me know and I'll come back and fix it later, lol.

“What’cha making?”

If he were a lesser man, he would have jumped at the unanticipated question. It has been many years since an elbow-height voice was piping around the manor. And even though the boy has been with them for several months now, Jason seems content keeping to himself more or less – either holed up in the library diligently working on the assignments to get him caught up for school, or exploring every forgotten nook and cranny of the old house, only to emerge coincidentally in time for meals with a dusting of spider webs in his hair. Alfred wonders what drove him to seek out his company today.

“Is that for dinner?”

Ah. The hope for an early pre-supper snack. He turns his attention away from the dough he’s kneading just enough to glance down at the curly-haired head next to him. The boy is just so _small_ , he often has a hard time remembering he’s eleven, not six. Even on tiptoes he struggles to peer over the counter.

“No young Master Jason, Master Bruce decided he’d like to make an addition to the pool house. I’m baking the bricks,” he quips with a small smile as he sets the dough into a loaf pan and slides it into the proving oven.

That would have sent young Master Richard into a giggling fit at his age. Instead, he is met with stony silence. He closes the oven door and while still crouched, turns to the new child who has taken up residence with them. Bright blue eyes are narrowed suspiciously at him.

“You’re shittin’ me, are you Alfie?”

Alfred raises his eyebrows in surprise at the vulgarity on the tongue of someone so young.

“We’re going to have to get a swear jar set up for you Master Jason, but yes, I’m as you say:  _shitting you_.”

Jason wrinkles his nose and Alfred isn’t sure if it’s at the idea of the jar or a feeling of betrayal.

“Well, how am I suppos’d to know? You rich people do crazy stuff all the time. Maybe you get your socks off makin’ buildings outta bread!” the boy defends, his cheeks turning pink in embarrassment.

Alfred just barely withholds a sigh. Yes, Jason is a very different kettle of fish than Richard. Luckily, Alfred has experience raising another prickly pear of a boy. Despite their different backgrounds, Jason’s somewhat serious and easily offended temperament reminds him rather more of Bruce as a child.

“You’re not wrong. The upper crust is prone to their eccentricities,” he admits, “But it was wrong of me to mislead. I’ve grown accustomed to only having Master Bruce in the house, and it’s necessary to knock him down a peg every once in a while.”

He confides with a wink and nudges Jason with a companionable shoulder. The boy flinches infinitesimally. If he wasn’t responsible for running a household of hyper-observant vigilantes over the past decade he may not have noticed. But he does, and it makes him wilt with guilt on the inside. He brushes a finger over his mustache and thinks.

“Do you like cooking Master Jason?” he asks.

The boy shrugs.

“Have you cooked before?”

This gets him more of a reaction.

Jason nods, “I used ta cook for my mom sometimes when she wasn’t feeling well.”

“And what did you make for her?”

“Just easy stuff: soup, toast, Chef Boyardee, beanie weenies,” he answers modestly.

“Beanie weenies?” Alfred tries his best to keep his tone more curious than incredulous.

“Oh yeah, that’s where you cut up hotdogs and put em in your baked beans.”

_Hot dogs in baked beans?_ That’s not one he’s heard before. He’s quite partial to beans on toast himself which he has been told is an odd combination here in the States. Every once in a while he caves to the craving of his youth for a simple tin of Heinz beans in tomato sauce, but hearing what Jason listed off, he wonders if the boy has ever had anything that wasn’t out of a can. It’s a wonder he only had the two cavities when Bruce took him in.

“And what was your favorite?”

“Mac ‘n cheese,” is the instantaneous answer.

“Ahh, macaroni and cheese. A good choice.”

“Yeah, the kind in the blue box. I like the one with the Scooby Doo shapes best,” Jason explains eagerly.

Scooby Doo shapes? Oh dear lord, these Yanks. He didn’t even know that program was still on the telly.

“Well, how would you like to help me make some macaroni and cheese for dinner?”

The boys face finally brightens in a rare smile, cheeks dimpling.

“Yeah!”

And before Alfred can say anything he is off like a shot towards the pantry. He winces at the sound of the folding pantry doors being thrown open more zealously than the hinges would prefer.

A shout of “I can’t find it!” echoes back to the kitchen.

“Find what, Master Jason?”

Jason’s head pokes out of the food closet looking perturbed.

“The mac and cheese.”

Alfred walks towards him with a smile, he grabs a bag of semolina off the shelf by Jason’s ear.

“That’s because we will be making it the _real_ way – from scratch. I promise, you have never had a cheesy macaroni so good before.”

He had been intending to make a short-rib goulash this evening, but there are more important things than sticking to a plan. They can have macaroni and cheese tonight and goulash tomorrow just as well, if it will make the child happy. Alfred picks through the shelves for what they’ll need and places them in Jason's arms. When the boy's arms are full, he grabs the mixer and the pasta attachment himself. He sets the heavy piece of kitchen equipment on the kitchen island where they will have plenty of space to work.

The thunk is followed by quiet and Alfred rolls his eyes at his own foolishness. Jason is hovering at the island’s edge mouth pursed as he tries to figure out how to unload his armful while both hands are occupied, too short to simply lower the items onto the countertop altogether. He has his knee hiked up to slow the descent of a wheel of cheese from sliding down his belly to the floor. Alfred quickly helps him, plucking them from his failing grasp and lining them up neatly. The next thing he does is grab the step stool from the hall closet.

Once they are both settled comfortably and of a similar height Alfred retrieves his coveted box of recipe cards and instructs Jason to find him the one for macaroni. He doesn’t really need the recipe, but it would be a good exercise for the boy’s regrettably under-developed reading comprehension. Jason finds the card and frowns at it.

“I don’t think this is right.”

“And what would lead you to that conclusion, Master Jason?”

“Well, I don’t know what some of this stuff is. Sem—sem-o-line-ah?”

“Semolina, it is a type of flour.”

“But it’s also got eggs in here. Since when do eggs go in macaroni and cheese?”

“Eggs go in many things you often do not realize. There were eggs in the meatballs we had with spaghetti last week, for example. They often act as a binding agent. In this case, they will hold the dough for the pasta together.”

“Wait, we’re making the pasta?” Jason asks incredulously.

“Yes, Master Jason.”

“Shit! For real? I didn’t even know you could do that! I thought it just came in boxes at the store. How do we even do that?!”

Alfred chuckles, “Read what’s on the card and we shall find out.”

Much more excited now than he was five minutes ago, Jason launches himself into the task with gusto. There’s a small slip when he almost adds a _tablespoon_ instead of a _teaspoon_ of salt to the well of dry ingredients, but Alfred manages to intercept it in time to avert disaster. He shows Jason carefully how to crack an egg and lets the boy do the rest. They lose a couple of practice eggs broken into a coffee mug before he gets the knack for it without leaving shell fragments behind.

Jason cackles quietly to himself in what may have been a menacing fashion if not for its high pre-adolescent pitch as they hand-mix the wet and dry ingredients together, digging his fingers messily into the squishy mess. Ah yes, this is a boy who likes to his hands dirty. Alfred considers asking him to help him in the garden one day. While he’d had marginal success in teaching Dick and Bruce both the basics of cooking for oneself (not that either ever chose to do so into adulthood), he’d never been able to convince them that working in the garden was anything other than a chore.

He sets the timer for 15 minutes and leaves Jason to kneading the dough while he makes tea and moves the bread from the proving oven to the baking oven. He keeps an eye on the boy’s efforts, ready to step in and finish when the strength in his stick-skinny arms begins to flag. But Jason continues on to the end with dogged determination, tongue poking out between his teeth as he folds and squashes.

It’s not until Bruce arrives home from work, hanging up his own coat and hat, that Alfred realizes several hours have passed. This is the longest Jason has ever spent with him of his own volition. And he’s slightly surprised at how much he’s enjoyed it. There is not a moment with Master Richard he does not remember fondly, but… young Dickie was something of a chatterbox, attention constantly flicking desultorily from one thing to another as he bounced around the room. It was at times exhausting.

Whereas Jason’s character is marked by a more focused resolve, a maturity that Dick had not yet learned at that age. There’s a purpose to his questions that impresses Alfred:  _What does that do? Why do you have to mix this first before adding that? What happens if you knead it for too long or not long enough?_

Jason’s eyes are currently locked on the noodles being pushed through the extruder. It’s his job to cut them into uniform lengths as they ooze out, while Alfred cranks the handle, and he’s taking it seriously. At least until he sees his adoptive father waltz in and his head pops up.

“Whoa, what’s going on in here?” Bruce asks innocently.

Jason’s grin splits his face as he picks up one overly-long noodle and wiggles it over his head.

“We’re making dinner. Hope you like maggots!”

Alfred closes his eyes and sighs. Maturity, it appears, is relative.


End file.
